Thicker than Sand
by A m r a k l o ve
Summary: Life in Egypt is plain, to say the least. Her bare, dirty feet carry her toward a golden-basked path she knows too well. Silver, delicate bracelets adorning her wrists and ankles jiggle as she walks on the road; the white linen of her tunics moves with new waves of heat. Sasuke has returned, Sakura loves, and life in Egypt is plain. / AU; Set in ancient Egypt.
1. Prologue

**A/N:** New story, can't help myself. It's a bit different from my other stories but I just couldn't stop thinking about it. There are not enough egyptian sasusaku fanfics out there anyway. Enjoy the short prologue! (and let me know if you like it).

*Naruto's not mine*

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 _ **Thicker than Sand**_

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Her bare, dirty feet carry her toward a golden-basked path she knows too well. Silver, delicate bracelets adorning her wrists and ankles jiggle as she walks on the road; the white linen of her tunics moves with new waves of heat. She greets everyone she encounters by, and they greet her back.

The steps ahead of her are pure stone and yellow paint, higher from the ground as further as her vision travels from below her feet. The air around her is dry and hot, and the sky above her is cloud-less. It is no anomaly; it is a normal day.

She takes the required steps up the sun-stroked path, each and every one lighter than the previous one, and stops right in front of a set of invisible gates—tall arches that extend to the sky, reaching the gods with unabashed glory. Glancing to her left, she places her hands on a basin next to one of the arches, and purifies herself in the warm water, like every morning since she remembers being protected by a high-up, godly decorated ceiling.

She enters the temple, and she sets out to clean the inside walls with a warm cloth. A small voice sounds next to her.

"A message for you, Chantress."

She stops making the bottom of the wall shine, a job she tries to perform everyday at the earliest of hours, and looks at Hinata—all makeup and young beauty—in the heat of Egypt. Sakura doesn't have time to acknowledge her with a nod, but instead of finding it rude (for the next words come out before her own), she has no regrets for the interruption by the end of the unexpected announcement.

"I must say, a guard has notified me on my way here, and left before I could ask for anything else." Her voice is quiet, though it does not quiver.

Sakura waits; thus she waits for it, because she has a feeling in the pit of her stomach. She slowly stands up, walks the stoned floor toward the young woman a few steps ahead of her, and stops, almost biting her lip at the look Hinata gives her—and she knows what the message is about before she even explains, but she listens to it all the same.

"The General has expressed to let you know that he's arrived safely to the city," Sakura holds her breath, eyes widening at the statement, "and that he'll be in the palace for the day." She finishes with a polite smile and resumes to her duties in the third room of the temple, down a hallway and saved only for statues.

Sakura's hand shakes slightly—it had been so long, too long. A month. Was it two? Maybe three, even, if she lets her mind trick itself—when she's scrubbing the dirt off the face of a sculpture of Isis, the goddess of this temple, and she shakes her trembles away as soon as she takes notice.

Sasuke has returned.

It is a normal day. Not for her, really.


	2. 5-8

**A/N:** This story is going to have up to 10 chapters (maximum), and 3 arcs: Childhood, Adolescence, Present/Young Adulthood (where prologue takes place). I hope I see reviews and followers, please let me know if you like this story!

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 _ **Thicker Than Sand**_

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They are sitting on the steps of her parent's house—they left early, and so no one is in the shadow of the small house, but them.

Sakura eyes the small rock in her hand, and throws it at the grey pavement, hoping it breaks into two equal parts—it doesn't, so she sighs and turns her attention to the boy next to her at the lack of things to do.

He looks at her, and smiles with a set of orderly white teeth that shine happiness; she smiles back. He tilts his head upwards, hand over his eyes to cover his vision, and gazes at the burning sun high above them.

Children are running on the streets.

She stares at his handsome, young profile—slight pointy nose, plum lips, suave features, long eyelashes, swiftly tanned skin, sweaty complex. She doesn't blame him, she's starting to perspire too. Although, not as much.

A sudden and unexpected surge of cool wind blows past them and shakes her greasy cotton hair while she keeps looking at him, gazing at the sky in peace. His spiky, unruly locks of brightly yellowed hair sway with the air—it leaves as soon as it comes. His hair is short—the tips don't get to grace his small shoulders, but they come close to.

"Naruto," she voices out, finally glancing to the empty, narrow streets in front of them, not meeting his cerulean, ocean-tainted eyes. Too wide and full of life. Too unique.

His attributes are weird. Too out of place in the city. As one of the only few people with that hair and eye colour, he stands out all the time. The vivid colours that adorn him are an aberration. She's almost the only friend he has. There's her and maybe Lee, and _him_. Dark, friendly eyes jump in her mind almost immediately and she supresses her blush quickly.

The sky is clear of any cloud, a sign of less water to consume. She inwardly sighs, and hopes Ra, up on his mighty throne, observing and creating and ruling, doesn't see her.

Naruto waits for her to ellaborate, and she does so minutes later.

"Do you have a dream?" The question is thrown delicately over her shoulder; people passing by don't get to hear it, but he does. His golden eyebrows scrunch up together, the inquiry bothering his immature mind, and he makes a sound come out of his mouth reminiscent of a caged animal. "A dream?" He repeats, replaying the word inside his head simultaneously.

When her eyes finish roaming his profile, she looks at the narrow paths to her left, a mountain leading to the market of the city. "Yes, a dream." She thinks of any other explanation, and finds that a small smile has come to her lips without her knowledge. She lets it rest there.

"What do you wish to accomplish in this life?"

Knowing each other for three years now, he trusts her enough for any of his most personal secrets—as they're not adults yet, he has not many. Just one.

He smiles, and then inches closer to her, until his lips are a grain of rice away from her right ear; she holds her breath.

"I will become the next King," he whispers, so as to let her know (and only her) about his future devotion.

She gasps, turning quickly once he settles again next to her, eyeing him with so much astonishment first that he, for a second, regrets saying anything at all. However, her face morphs into a more serious one, one that holds affection in her bright, innocent eyes.

The King? A pharaoh is the absolute ruler of this short-lived life; a pharaoh is a King, an entity to respect and serve under the watchful eyes of the gods; a pharaoh is "commit a sin and you will die"; a pharaoh is not anybody, he is holy and chosen. A pharaoh can decide who dies and who lives; who gets to go into the next life. Naruto as King? What an atrocity, she wants to say. But that's not what would be best, she knows.

In only a minute later, she plants her right hand onto his tanner, left hand. She squeezes accordingly tight, reassuringly. She smiles.

His shining blue eyes and soft features and blond hair flash in her eyes as she stares at him for a long time, the setting light making everything seem a bit more orange. A King is someone special. Looking at Naruto, now, she knows what to say.

She has no doubt.

"You will be a great Pharaoh."

They quietly laugh on the steps of her house; the almost nonexistent percentage of chances of that happening is never touched. Naruto turns to her.

"Do _you_ have a dream?"

The sun is almost disappearing behind the stone buildings in front of them; they're five and dreamy, apparently, and Sakura thinks.

Her mother smiles at her in her memory, healing hands on a battered body, mending a broken man with the touch of her skin and spells she never tells anyone. Her father, on the other hand, a cheerful man with the strongest set of arms in the whole city; day and night building new homes for every person who needs it and has the necessary resources.

Naruto notices she gives his hand a little squeeze, before retrieving hers slowly. She looks at the ground, fists the ends of her dusty clothing, a small smile gracing the corners of her pink lips, and finally finds a proper answer in her.

"I want to help people," he looks at her, interest picking, "I want to give and offer; I want to fulfil this short life making the gods happy, making _people_ happy." She finishes, glancing at him through her long bangs. A set of wide, white teeth grin at her in the confidence of the almost dark street. "That's a good dream, Sakura-chan." She has no doubt.

Sakura stands up, and offers him a hand to stand too. He has to leave to his house soon, now that the sky is a darker colour.

"Yeah."

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Ino has been her friend since she has a memory. Ino is her friend whenever she looks at a flower—a plant, any flora—and thinks of tan complexion and exotic beauty. Ino is her friend since she remembers.

The only other person with characteristics similar to Naruto's—blue eyes and blonde hair and soft edges and such an ethereal beauty that she thinks it's surreal sometimes—inhabiting the city.

Ino doesn't mind what anyone thinks. She paints around her eyes and on her cheeks in a creamy pink and talks with boys that aren't her age. Sakura can never be like her. But they're six, and they're friends.

She holds red to her lips. "What's that?" Sakura inspects her from up close, frowning at the elongated object in an elegant hand.

"This," she flashes the red in front of Sakura's face, and smiles, "is to make your lips prettier."

Sakura steps back, eyes wide at how beautiful Ino looks with red marrying the outside of her mouth. She's seen before painters adorning a female's lips the same colour, but she had never seen the object itself in person. Ino stands up and walks toward her with the long painting object still in hand.

"Would you like to try?"

Sakura wants to refuse, to tell her that she doesn't want to. Her mother wears a fair amount of makeup everyday, and she tells Sakura that peasant children don't need it as much. She almost denies Ino. But she really, really wants to see how she looks. A tiny part of her wants to be vain.

Later, as she's staring at her reflection in the Nile, she scrubs her hand against the paint, quickly taking it off and washing her hands with infuriating will. The image of her furious red lips stays in her brain for years. After seeing the contrasting difference, she doesn't touch an object like that one for many more.

No, she'll never be like Ino. She is pretty, as she is told a decent amount of times, but the more makeup she puts on to accentuate her attributes, the worse it looks on her. Simple, little makeup always does good on her pale-like skin.

She'll never be like Ino, but now she knows to never try again.

She goes home with a lighter heart.

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They look up at the immensity of the palace, eyes wide and mouths open.

"Stop moving so much!"

"You're stepping on my hand!"

"Shh, they're going to find us if you don't stop fidgeting."

The royal palace is big, so much that she doesn't think there's any other building larger than this one in the whole city. Moving the small bushes aside, they see the backyard ahead of them—the gardens and the numerous plants making her eyes even wider at how Ino would love to get to see this—past the short fence that covers part of the view from where they stand. Behind them, there's something akin to a cliff of sand, so she tries not to move so much.

A closer look at it—a few seconds after her light eyes adjust to the rays cascading onto the earth under them—and Sakura is subtly pointing at a seemingly tall man crouching down next to a woman, beside a small pond on the ground. Naruto looks to where she's pointing, and his mouth closes when the man glances at him from the corner of his honey eyes. Sakura swallows.

The stare is gentle, but harsh, and it roams over the boy next to her before briefly looking her over, and blinking his eyes away disinterested. She feels naked under the deed they're doing, standing just a few feet away from the grand behemoth.

"The King," she whispers, finally gaining her voice back when said king looks at the flowers under his feet.

That day, she witnesses how the hands of the current, mighty Pharaoh travel from the woman's neck down to her front, and end between her open legs. She sees her face; pleasure written all over it. A soft moan escapes her lips.

The King keeps looking at Naruto, though, and she bites her lip and frowns a little—they're close, but not enough to be _inside_ the palace's gardens. There's a fence and a few meters separating them from the greenest grass she has ever laid eyes on.

When she tugs on Naruto's arm to leave—the Pharaoh is right there, she keeps repeating to herself, such a holy entity she quickly averts her eyes from the intimate moment between the lord and his mistress—he finally stands with the woman and enters grand doors into a bedroom. Sakura sighs in relief, in an alley, high on a mountain full of sand, in front of the palace Naruto had insisted on seeing for his sixth birthday.

Two guards order them to leave the periphery of the palace grounds, and they slowly retrieve back to the banal, common-life streets, the intense stare from the king slowly leaving with them.

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She sees him as she bites into an apple, the juice traveling past her jaw at the sight. It is rare, he has so many duties—even as a child, seven years and all—that she barely sees him at all. While she stays at home learning how to read and looking over her mother's manuscripts, he stays at home learning a fourth language and knowing every law and every stance needed to fight. She goes out to buy necessary food and he goes out to assist his father on political matters. Last time she could look at him on the streets, she was five.

She sees him, eating a forgotten apple, and he sees her back.

The red of the apple doesn't compare to the one on her cheeks.

But then he averts his gaze, and she finds it in herself to avert hers too, out of respect—for a moment, only, because then she hears his voice from far down the street, below the hill where she sits, and she thinks her face lights up even more—before turning her eyes toward him once again.

The sky is at its bluest and the climate is at its most humid air, but she's used to it all and she looks upon him like she's never seen him before.

He's playing ball with Naruto. She wants to trek down the sand and play with them too, but her parents would disapprove and girls don't really play ball. She inwardly sighs.

Standing up, she looks at Sasuke before walking away and inside her house. The apple lies on the sand, rolls down the hill, and lands next to his feet.

But when he looks up in confusion, she's not there.

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Ino touches her arm. She's looking at boys playing in a camp of dry grass. Away from the city and more toward the outskirts. She touches her arm, but Sakura doesn't pay attention.

"Who do you like, Sakura?"

Who _does_ she like? It's obvious. A familiar face and a name come to her faster than she had expected. However, she does not voice those thoughts out loud.

She looks over tan faces and dirty clothes, and even though some faces are attractive enough, they don't compare to him. She can't help but feel nothing when she looks at the strangers with the same age as hers playing.

"Boys don't interest me, Ino."

Ino gasps, and Sakura realises her mistake too late. "The priests are against girls liking girls, Sakura."

"No!" She shakes her hands in front of her, cringing at the cacophony that comes out of her lips. She almost beseeches her to forget about her even saying that. She quickly arbiters the situation. "I am not inclined toward such arcane likes."

Ino buys it, it seems, and she quickly prods her with another question. "Then? Do you not like any boy?"

Sakura turns her head to look at her, and notices the soft ting of pink on her cheeks. She understands. "Do you?"

"Sakura, what an absurd assumption," Ino exclaims, returning her stare and frowning at the little smile. "You do know I always like _at least_ one boy." They laugh.

Sakura walks back to her house alone, thinking of their conversation. The sand against her bare, austere feet feels rough instead of the usual softness she's used to feeling. The sky is bereft of any clouds, as usual.

Sakura thinks of Sasuke. And when she's home and her mother gives her food and she's staring at the sole window in the kitchen, she knows her answer.

Yes, she likes a boy. He's smart and he's handsome and he's out of reach. She never really tells Ino.

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"Mother." It's not a burden, so her mother leaves the manuscripts on the table to look at Sakura.

"Yes?"

Word on the streets has reached her small, attentive ears. She has been eager, almost, to know its truthfulness.

"What happened to the Uchiha family?"

It is a personal question, but she tries to make it as general as possible. Her mother flinches, and that's how she knows that _she_ knows an answer. That what little she has heard may be true. As a doctor, whatever happened to Sasuke's family, Sakura knows her mother was the first one to assist.

Her mother sighs, stands up, and walks past her unhurriedly. "You shall know," she quietly says, "but not yet."

Sakura stares at her back and bites her lip.

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Naruto is taken to the royal palace with no prior notice when she turns eight, and she spends three days inside her house with no ray of light to shine upon her. Her parents, knowing her and knowing him, don't object once. When she does come out, though, it is because of Sasuke.


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